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Donald Rosenberg, The Plain Dealer  |  January 27, 2013

Lines Ballet makes mesmerizing Cleveland debut (review)

A dance company's reputation can set up all sorts of expectations. Some are met, others not. But there's no need to dwell on preconceptions when it comes to Alonzo King Lines Ballet. The San Francisco dance company is a stunner, as its Cleveland debut Saturday at the Ohio Ballet made blazingly clear.

The program, presented by DanceCleveland and PlayhouseSquare, featured two of artistic director King's recent creations, "Scheherazade" and "Resin." Each is a richly conceived work of 40 or so minutes filled with solos, duets and ensembles that make stellar use of the company's 12 exceptional dancers.

The name Lines Ballet has myriad associations in terms of technique and metaphor. King applies the word "lines" holistically to his distinctive blend of classical ballet and modern dance. The dancers often extend themselves to the max, while sending lines in every imaginable direction.

In "Scheherazde," King employs classical vocabulary the women dance on point to a haunting take on the familiar tale of 1,001 Arabian nights. The story unfolds as a series of encounters without literal connotation, though the figures of the storytelling Scheherazade and dominating Shahryar (the king) are introduced at the outset.

What follows is a torrid and exotic explosion of Kingian creativity, set to a score by the noted Indian tabla composer and player Zakir Hussain that transforms themes from Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite into a glittering and sinuous soundscape of percussion, flutes, harp and voices.

King's choreography always on the surprising move, with elegant and striking deployment of arms and legs provides equal opportunities for his dancers. At Saturday's performance, they were as animated, limber and pinpoint in solo sequences as they were in inventive and individual ensemble sections that only fleetingly resort to unison patterns.

Dancing before Robert Rosenwasser's atmospheric eastern-tinged backdrops of changing colors, the cast members stood out whether en masse or alone. The extended duet for Scheherazade and Shahryar was a burst of seductive intertwinements that Kara Wilkes and David Harvey shaped with supple vibrancy. The evocations of tribal rituals showed the company to be a rhythmic powerhouse.

King employs metaphor in almost mystical ways in "Resin," which alludes to the sap from a tree whose "harden resins are called tears," as the choreographer states in a program note. The score of Sephardic music of the Diaspora by Jordi Savall and archival recordings conjures varied states of lamentation and exultation, which are reflected in the multi-faceted choreography.

King maintains a keen balance of grounded and airborne ideas, at once ornamental and darting, and always in expressive counterpoint to the music. Throughout the 16 sections, the dancers the men bare-chested, the women in gilded or silvery tunics thrust themselves into a perpetual motion of solo and ensemble material.

All of the dancers made dynamic contributions Saturday, including the regal and pliant Courtney Henry, poetic Meredith Webster, charismatic Keelan Whitmore and vigorous Ricardo Zayas. How the company could achieve such precision and clarity in the dizzying ensembles is something only the dancers and King could tell.

Two moments in "Resin" especially dazzled, thanks to King, Rosenwasser, lighting designer Axel Morgenthaler and the company: as particles that look like sand rained down on the dancers, we actually could see the tears that the music had fixed in our subconscious. It was unforgettable, like Lines Ballet.

DANCECleveland

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